Sunday, 30 November 2008

I wish there were just cats in my room

I've had an interesting time trying to write a blog, firstly I'd occasionally update stuff on my MySpace page, then as a result of the comedian Ray Peacock, I got a Blog on the Comedy Website Chortle.co.uk, which still returns as my top Google result, which is a shame as the particular blog that is top basically says I'll be writing a new blog soon and then has a punter who saw me at a Bikers' Rally telling me I'm shit.

Anyway, the lovely Mr Steve Bennett at Chortle Towers decided that once I stopped blogging as frequently and Ray had gone on to do the fantastic Ray Peacock Podcasts, that too few people were reading them so they got stopped.

I think that's what happened.

I stopped Blogging regularly just over a year ago when I met my Mrs.

She's an artist, and a fantastic one, and oddly enough is the opposite in terms of personality to me in a lot of ways which makes us complimentary. Where I'm a gobshite who spills out everything that flows through her head to anyone who'll listen, she's quite quiet and guarded, and doesn't like it when I mention her too much. I love her for this, though it did make my ability to write the sort of Blog I'd been writing wane slightly.

Over the year since I met her we fell deeply in love and earlier in the year she asked me to marry her. I said yes, quite tearfully at the time. One thing that romantic comedies never tell you is how much snot and tears are present in the average marriage proposal.

After this people kept asking why I wasn't blogging anymore and eventually my Mrs, asked me, and I told her, to which she said I was stupid for having stopped and should start writing again as loads of people loved to hear what I had to write.

As I type this she's curled up in bed asleep with a cold, and I'm a bit useless at this point, as I’m never sure what to do to help, I try my best but it seems to end in agitation. This has been confounded by the fact that last night for tea I made Quorn Steak Pudding, mustard Mash and marrowfat peas. The sort of dinner that quite rightfully gets called "tea" by any self respecting northerner. It was lovely, but has shown up one massive downside, insofar as I've already got irritable bowel syndrome and so as a result of said tea I've had the worst wind I've ever known, seriously you could fly a kite in this room right now. Unfortunately for the Mrs, her cold as of yet hasn't caused her to have a blocked nose.

I've had a shitty time of it recently, I had a falling out with a good friend when I was living at theirs and ended up way behind on my rent, whilst I was waiting for the post Edinburgh gigging situation to turn around. By the time it did the damage had already been done.

But the feeling of having to be in the house depressed me, left me with that clawing depression that I'd not felt in 8 years, I'd made a miscalculation of some money I was due to receive, which was what I was waiting for in order to pay off my rent and get my car serviced and all sorts of other lovely stuff like that. This one cheque through the post that would signal the end of trying to live of £20.00 per week. Unfortunately I'd misunderstood the terms and ended up with about £1,000 less than I thought. The panic attack that followed was monumental and I didn't get out of bed for nearly 2 days.

There was only one hope for it. I needed to get a day job.

I last did a day job just over two years ago; I was a receptionist at a carpet tiles factory for my last temping job. I started at this job about 3 days after I'd been dumped by my ex, who I had fallen in love with. The result was that for the three weeks I worked there I sat all day, every day on reception crying and putting invoices in envelopes. Occasionally a male member of staff would walk in see me, try to smile and awkwardly either try and engage me in conversation or try and pat me on the shoulder and say it will be alright (this was equally as awkward), before walking through to his other work colleagues and say "she's crying still."

Oddly that was one of the better jobs I had. Shortly after though, I went back to university. This was all detailed in my previous blogs, at great length, but in short this is what happened then.

I moved in with said ex, this being a result of me a.) Being an idiot, and b.) Being terrified of ending up in a living situation with strangers. On the day I moved in my ex went on her first date with a new girlfriend, who within 2 weeks was pretty much living in the house that we shared. Twice I went to university and twice I ended up in this situation. There were arguments and fights, one ended up in a fist fight where I bit my ex on the tits before getting thrown out of the house. I ended up back there for a while and then in my second (final year) at uni ended up in a different house with a fantastic flatmate called Amber who I hit it off with straight away as a result of her being a shambles of a human, just like me. We shared with a Namibian girl called Victoria who kept opening my post and had a strange argument style which involved telling me about the horrors she'd seen, and a Polish girl called Ella who was totally intrigued by me being gay.

I did bugger all for the best part of two years then had to learn everything in two weeks and managed to get myself a degree before heading off the Edinburgh Festival whereupon I received critical acclaim for my show and had an average audience of 15 for the whole run, except the night that the reviewer from Time Out, Tim Arthur was in when the audience comprised of him, one of the front of house staff, the Mrs, and a Japanese tourist called Minnie.

I was expecting the gig offers to come flooding in. I'd had a successful Edinburgh, critically my show did great, I'd been asked to do a tour of Finland and I was going to start writing a Screenplay of the show for the BBC to try and get it made into a film (I'd been asked to do this, I'm not delusional.)

The offers didn't come flooding in, I went back to phoning round as many people as I could every day, by the beginning of November I was starting to get enough gig coming in and would soon be out of the shit, especially when the £1,200 cheque I was expecting arrived. As it happened, it was a cheque for £56, I queried it and they agreed, they'd made a mistake, and quite a substantial one. I then received a cheque for £286.

So once I'd managed to get myself out of bed I decided to try my best to get a job, as being a graduate this would mean that the Bank would give me a lovely Graduate loan with which I could buy my way out of my current situation.

So I started looking, the depression was still on top of me, and the living situation wasn't making it any easier.

Anyway, to cut a long and tedious story short I'm still looking, but I'm feeling better, it's been an odd fortnight to say the least.

I really want to go through the weeks gigging, as I've had the best few weeks I've ever had, but I've been writing this for what seems like ages, so I'll go away and rest and try and come back in a bit and write some more.

1 comment:

Good stuff Gothbird. I've got engaged as well as it goes, engagement party in the new year to which you will of course cordially etc., oh and I've got a blog as well:http://bastardsofshop.blogspot.com, which should remind you just how dreadful day jobs are.

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Once described as "unremarkable" by a clueless imbecile, she has gone on to astound and amuse audiences throughout the UK. Telling the excruciatingly embarrassing true stories from her daily life, through her honesty and confessional style she has started to build herself a cult following. This goth, lesbian stand-up comic is certainly nothing short of utterly unique...